


I’m Done Fighting All Night

by Rsbry_Beret



Category: Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, M/M, after the whole sixth floor debacle, can u tell im touch starved as i write this, joan is mentioned but that’s it, leif donnelly angst, set after episode 10? 11? one of those, tobin batra angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 17:28:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28728882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rsbry_Beret/pseuds/Rsbry_Beret
Summary: “Are we cool?” Leif asked tentatively.Tobin kept his head tilted off, towards the kitchen. After a moment he licked his lips and said, slowly, “I have no shortage.”Leif waited for him to continue.Finally, he turned his head back to Leif, eyes intense but still flickering away every few seconds. “I have no shortage of people who have no trouble leaving me.”
Relationships: Tobin Batra & Leif Donnelly, Tobin Batra/Leif Donnelly
Comments: 9
Kudos: 28





	I’m Done Fighting All Night

**Author's Note:**

> title from I Don’t Want to Slow Dance by Joji
> 
> Set after episode (10? 11?) because I feel like one talk in a meeting room wouldn’t solve all the issues between Leif and Tobin… like spellaversary settled okay, but Tobin canonically had abandonment issues so idk.

Tobin was sitting on the couch when Leif finally unlocked their apartment door and came inside, shaking off his coat and dropping his keys in a terrible homemade dish by the door- Tobin had insisted they buy it when he saw it at the thrift store, and Leif had been too charmed by the way his smile lit up his face to refuse. Tobin sat sideways, back against the armrest, eyes closed and fingers tapping a slow rhythm on his knee where it sat curled up near his chest. 

“Hey, Tobes,” Leif said, voice pitched a little quieter than normal. 

Tobin’s eyes snapped open, and he quickly turned his head to face him. His mouth opened and closed for a moment before his eyebrows scrunched up. “Is everything supposed to be fine now?”

Leif faltered, rocking back a step before continuing on into the living room. “Well, not… not right away, I guess,” he said, sitting down gingerly on the other side of the couch, Tobin’s feet a few inches away from his leg. “I kind of thought we were- that we were cool?”

Tobin nodded absentmindedly and turned his head away. 

Leif watched his face for a moment, the blurred shadows cast under his eye bags and jaw. He felt a pang of something like regret. 

“ _ Are _ we cool?” Leif asked tentatively.

Tobin kept his head tilted off, towards the kitchen. After a moment he licked his lips and said, slowly, “I have no shortage.”

Leif waited for him to continue. 

Finally, he turned his head back to Leif, eyes intense but still flickering away every few seconds. “I have no shortage of people who have no trouble leaving me.”

Leif flinched. “That- that’s not what it was! Tobes, you have to know that wasn’t what it was.” 

Tobin leaned back, face drawn in, resigned. “Wasn’t it?”

“ _ No. _ I mean, I told you, I did it for us, you know, I couldn't- I  _ wouldn’t- _ “

Tobin raised a hand to cut him off, looking anywhere but Leif’s face. The two of them sat in silence for a long minute. 

“I’m going to go make tea,” Leif murmured, and stood to go to the kitchen. He had made it halfway there before a noise behind him stopped him. He turned around. 

“How do you do it?” Tobin asked suddenly, jolting forward towards Leif and stopping five feet in front of him, a little to the left so Leif had to turn to watch his face.

Leif shifted his weight. “Do what?”

“How are you so angry all the time?” Tobin smiled at him, all teeth and lips, suddenly desperate, almost manic. “At Zoey and at Joan and at yourself? And your brothers and your parents and me, now, I guess.”

Leif stared. 

“I know the anger. I- I feel it too, hot.” Tobin lurched forward again to clutch at Leif’s hand where it hung limp by his side. He pulled it forward, tight against his chest and held in both of Tobin’s shaking palms. “Burning. But you never run out of it. You feel it so much, Leif.”

Tobin looked at him, and Leif looked back, his eyes lost. 

“Don’t you ever get tired?”

The two of them stood silent, watching each other. Finally, Leif slowly pulled his hands intertwined with Tobin’s away from his chest and under his own chin. 

“You  _ have _ to know by now,” Leif exhaled, quiet and strained, “that I love you.”

“I do. I know.” Tobin glanced away, then back. “But you still chose her, Leif.”

Leif hesitated. “Let’s go sit on the couch.”

Tobin pulled back, suddenly, taking a half step back and wrapping his arms around his stomach. “Did she kiss you better than I did? Did you need to get away from me? You could have just said. I’d forgive you if you left because you hated me, Leif, but I don’t know—“ Tobin cut himself off, frustrated, glaring at the empty couch, the cheap Ikea furniture, a kombucha stain in the carpet. “I don’t know if I can forgive you, if you left because you loved me. Because you loved me, just not enough to stay.”

“Of  _ course not! _ Tobin. Tobin, I’m sorry. I did it for us.” Leif stepped forward again, and Tobin matched him, parrying back, brushing the coffee table with his leg. Leif’s hands felt useless by his sides.

The apartment felt still, in the silence. 

“I know you did,” Tobin finally said, soft. “I know you did.”

Tobin sighed and walked to the couch again, sat down on the side farthest from Leif, arms still tight around himself. Leif followed, curled with his back against the opposite armrest to face Tobin. 

“But you hurt me.”

A fist squeezed the air out of Leifs lungs, sudden. His skin was too tight, for just a second, then normal again as the world shifted into sharper focus. 

“You- you hurt me and you left and suddenly it was like you didn’t care about me anymore. Like you had moved on.” Tobin’s arms slowly uncrossed, until his hands were fighting on his lap, still tilted towards the black tv. “And I was coming back to our empty apartment every night and it didn’t feel like  _ ours _ anymore, you were with Joan or at the office or asleep already, I was eating cereal alone in the mornings like I haven’t in  _ years, _ okay? I’m  _ sorry. _ I guess I just wanted…”

Leif’s words caught in his throat, stuck. His limbs were lead, he couldn’t reach out for Tobin, wasn’t sure he should have even if he could. 

“I wanted you to do something for me, not for us.” Tobin turned his head to Leif and met his eyes. “Is that selfish?”

“ _ Tobin, _ ” his voice cracked, and that was all he could say. 

All at once, Tobin’s faced crumpled like a used tissue. He collapsed forward into Leif’s chest, clutching at him and crying silent tears into his shoulder. 

Leif let his knuckles brush against the nape of Tobin’s neck, once, before shifting to hold his shoulder, pulling him somehow closer, letting him fall apart. 

“Tobin, you are the  _ only thing, _ okay?” Tobin sniffled, burrowed into the crook of his neck. “The promotion, Joan, I  _ cared  _ about it, her, sure. But not- never like you. Never like you.”

Tobin pulled back slowly and reluctantly, hair tousled, eyes red. Two thin tear tracks traced his face before disappearing off his chin, and Leif’s heart ached. “Promise?”

Leif cupped his jaw in his hand. “I promise.”

“And you still… care about Joan, like that?”

“Of course I do,” Leif said, and felt Tobin flinch lightly but held fast. “But not like you. She’s not you, Tobin. Joan was awesome, is awesome. I liked her, I probably could have loved her.” His thumb brushed across Tobin’s cheekbone without direction. “If I didn’t love you the way I do, maybe I would have.”

“I’m sorry for breaking down. And… drawing back. And assuming.” Tobin leaned his face further into Leif’s palm. 

“ _ I’m sorry. _ For.. all of it. For not noticing what it was doing to you. I know it’ll take time for you to forgive me for it, I know we were… on our way towards something, before I jumped ship. I get it, if you don’t want that with me anymore.”

“I do,” Tobin insisted. “I need time. But I do, eventually.”

Leif felt his whole face soften into an expression that was probably embarrassing. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead against Tobin’s, closing his eyes. “Okay. Good, okay.”

Leif felt Tobin let out a puff of air. “Okay.”

They both stayed like that for a while, until the light shifted darker through the curtains and the world melted around them. 

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading folks!! now that season 2 is coming out im trying to work through all my wips,,, we’ll see how many i finish :/
> 
> i live in fear that Tobin is going to have a relationship w (season 2 ep 2 spoiler) one of the new coders on fourth floor so this is me pretending i don’t have that fear. take me back when, please. 
> 
> ur comments make me (: so i’d. appreciate. spare a comment bls?


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